D&D 5E The core issue of the martial/caster gap is just the fundamental design of d20 fantasy casters.

[Tony Vargas]

But they don't have to be arduous.
The reason we see the arduous means coming up is because this is an old-school leaning board.

Arduous means? I think the problem would be there regardless of the means used to close the gap.

 

[Mort]

The "balance problems" in question were worth fighting the edition war, re-designing basic classes after only two years, discontinuing the current edition after only 2 more, two years of no new product spent developing & public playtesting, and a whole new edition - to bring back.
And there's no arguing with results, it was absolutely the right business decision to restore the "Martial/Caster Gap" (and natural language and DM Empowerment), it saved the community, and thus IP, from the toxicity of the edition war, and ushered in a new golden age of revenue growth.

As to the natural language -

I read somewhere (will have to track it down) that WoTC found out LOTS of people like to buy the books/supplements simply to read, without ever playing. And they clearly skewed the 5e books to be MUCH more reading friendly. The 4e core books read like technical manuals, which was great for precision, and which I, personally, liked - but it was bad for the read for fun crowd.

It's another reason why, I, and many others, see the DMG organization/arrangement and cringe. But WoTC likely sees it as a feature that attracts people who would not otherwise buy it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Arduous means? I think the problem would be there regardless of the means used to close the gap.

Making it more work in play or actively harming the character to cast spells. It's not the same as nerfing.

 

[Aldarc]

One thing I've contemplated is that the wizard spell list should be divided into common and rare spells, and you could only choose common spells as your free spells and would need to find rare ones as scrolls.

Another thought that I had, possibly in conjunction with yours, is that the wizard could get one spell of their choice but the player would then roll for thei other one, representing a breakthrough in their magical research. Magical research in downtime could net the wizard another spell but they need time, money, and possibly more for that.

 

[overgeeked]

One thing I've contemplated is that the wizard spell list should be divided into common and rare spells, and you could only choose common spells as your free spells and would need to find rare ones as scrolls.

Something similar is possibly splitting combat and non-combat spells. Making the non-combat spells rituals and thereby opening them up to anyone. It would solve a lot of problems.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Something similar is possibly splitting combat and non-combat spells. Making the non-combat spells rituals and thereby opening them up to anyone. It would solve a lot of problems.

This is close to the solution in Icon RPG (which is not the same as the "icons" rpg). They have a strict separation of combat and exploration, and nothing that is available in combat is available in exploration and vice versa. This means that, for example, teleportation abilities that work in combat do not work outside of combat.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Something similar is possibly splitting combat and non-combat spells. Making the non-combat spells rituals and thereby opening them up to anyone. It would solve a lot of problems.

It did solve problems. It also created a few, in particular, when rituals were given a gp cost, even one that became relatively cheap as you leveled, they were under-utilized.

 

[Pedantic]

It did solve problems. It also created a few, in particular, when rituals were given a gp cost, even one that became relatively cheap as you leveled, they were under-utilized.

And the 10 minute casting times, though that's relatively easily resolved by moving them to 1 minute. Stances have softened over time, but that was an immediate "you can't stand still doing spell stuff for 10 whole minutes in a dangerous environments!" complaint that came up in my early 4e exposure.

I think it's also quite hard to draw that non-combat/combat line without making a bunch of other gameplay assumptions, and I don't think it's necessarily better for the game that core resolution not involve spells. I've argued before that the fundamental gameplay loop of spending spells to solve problem (and finding creative ways to leverage specific prepackaged techniques) is more engaging and more fun than rolling skill checks. If anything, I'd prefer that become the default mode of play, instead of trying to make that more closely resemble "action declaration->roll to see if it works."

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Something similar is possibly splitting combat and non-combat spells. Making the non-combat spells rituals and thereby opening them up to anyone. It would solve a lot of problems.

In a sense that everyone can become a caster. But that really isn't the sort of a solution that at least I would want.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Actually playing PF2 has changed my stance on 10 minute rituals. The difference is that RF2 gives everyone stuff that takes ten minutes to do so you aren't wasting the party's time.